"The money was sought prematurely," because Obama does not yet have a plan for what do to with the detainees there, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would use a national security speech on Thursday to unveil a "hefty part" of his strategy for closing the prison, a global symbol of US "war on terrorism" excesses.

"We agree with Congress that before resources, they should receive a more detailed plan," Gibbs told reporters.

At the Pentagon, press secretary Geoff Morrell insisted that "everything remains on track" for the United States to shutter the facility according to Obama's timetable.

"I see nothing to indicate that that date is at all in jeopardy," Morrell said, amid the pitched political battle over the fate of about 240 detainees from 30 countries still held at the US naval base in southeastern Cuba.

Obama has asked for 80 million dollars to shutter the facility as part of a massive supplemental spending plan to pay for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through October 1 and provide emergency aid to Pakistan.

The House of Representatives did not include the money in its 96.7 billion dollar version of the bill, but the Senate had included in its 93.1 billion dollar version with some restrictions.

Obama's request has run into stiff opposition from Republicans and Democratic unease about the potential transfer or release of detainees -- even those cleared of terrorism charges -- onto US soil.

Democrats hoped to defuse the issue with an amendment, to be introduced Tuesday, that would scrap the funding until Obama has a plan for what to do with detainees fated to be freed, tried, or incarcerated.

"I think the part that is 'no funding until there is a plan' is fine. I think this money was premature," said Feinstein, who told reporters she had discussed the matter with Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid.

But "most Americans don't know that we already have major terrorists and serial killers housed in 'supermax' federal prisons from which no one has ever escaped and is not in anyone's community," she told reporters.

The California senator dismissed Republican warnings that suspected terrorists could walk US streets as "just a lot of bull" but acknowledged the political potency of the charges.

"It's a problem because it gets people upset," she said.

"And yet we have a responsibility," she added.

"I think we have to measure up to that responsibility. God knows we have the facilities that can house them safely and apart from anyone's neighborhood, community, or anything else."

Obama has set up a review of the detainee's cases, while appealing to US allies to take in some of the prisoners who cannot be returned to their home countries.

And senior lawyers and officials at the Pentagon are engaged in "near constant meetings with their counterparts" at the Justice and State Departments on the "complicated" issue, Morrell said.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has vigorously campaigned against shutting the prison, warned early Tuesday that closing it now would "make Americans less safe."

"It's hard to imagine that moving this facility somewhere else and giving it a different name will somehow satisfy our critics in European capitals. Even less likely is the notion that by moving detainees from the coast of Cuba to Colorado, terrorists overseas will turn their swords into ploughshares," he said.

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